Article excerpt

This investigation describes the construction and examination of psychometric properties of the Filipino Adherence to Masculinity Expectations (FAME) Scale using a sample of male university students (N = 834) in the Philippines. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) indicated support for seven dimensions: Assertiveness and Dominance; Family Orientedness; Sense of Community; Responsibility; Integrity; Intelligence and Academic Achievement; and Respectful Deference to Women and the Elderly. The FAME had excellent internal consistency reliability (Cronbach α = .95). It was apparent that the FAME deals with largely prosocial ideals of masculinity in the Philippines. In terms of convergent validity, the FAME had some similar but mostly distinct dimensions as compared to a measure developed for use with U.S. samples: Masculinity Attitudes, Stress, and Conformity Questionnaire (MASC; Nabavi & Green, 2003). The discussion explores future directions of research and potential uses of the FAME in clinical work with Filipino male clients.

KEYWORDS FILIPINO MEN, MASCULINITY, FACTOR ANALYSIS, VALIDITY, EMIC

The gender role identity paradigm, which dominated research on gender beginning in the early 1930s, viewed masculinity as based on inherent traits or genes. Fleck (1981) proposed that this model does not sufficiently account for the formation of masculine ideology. Instead, he postulated a Gender Role Strain paradigm wherein masculinity is regarded as a cultural construction. In this view, men's behavior is accounted for by the conceptions of masculinity that men internalize from their culture. Given this perspective, there is no single, invariant, and universal masculinity, but rather there are masculinities that vary by age, culture, race, ethnic group, social class, sexual orientation, life stage, marital status, and historical era Brod, 1987; Gilmore, 1990; Lazur & Majors, 1995; Levant et al., 1992; Levant & Majors, 1997; Levant, Wu & Fischer, 1996; Fleck, Sonenstein & Ku, 1993).

In the gender role strain paradigm, socialization practices may be inferred from gender ideologies. Thus, masculinity ideology is an essential construct in understanding the development and maintenance of the male gender role Lazur & Majors, 1995). Masculinity ideology is defined as "an individual's internalization of cultural belief systems and attitudes toward masculinity and men's roles" Fleck et al., 1993, p. 88). Given this definition, masculinity ideology varies as a function of differences in social, historical, political and cultural context. Despite the variety in masculinity ideologies, Fleck posited that "there is a particular constellation of standards and expectations that individually and jointly have various kinds of negative concomitants," which is referred to as traditional masculinity ideology 1995, p. 20).

The social construction of masculinity spurred a series of studies in an attempt to expand the scope of masculinity research into the international arena. These studies were in part a response to Connell's (1998) call for a more global perspective about men by expanding the scope of gender and masculinity research to include cross-cultural masculinity ideologies. However, Louie and Low (2003) noted that most of these investigations tend to be empirical and descriptive and are frequently developed from a Western perspective. Pertinent to Asian men, most of the studies were restricted to those living as minorities in the United States or Canada, resulting in a limited understanding of Asian masculinities.

The purpose of the current study was to develop a new instrument that takes into account indigenous and non-Western conceptions of masculinity in the Philippines. This study is part of similar efforts that have explored non-Western forms of masculine gender role norms among Asian- American men Chua & Fujino, 1999) and Mexican-American men Arciniega, Anderson, TovarBlank, & Tracey, 2008). …

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